I did for 10+ years, regretfully.
Quick background: ME since 1997, worsened with poor medical advice for "cfs" (exercised when I would start feeling a little better; didn't realize the crashes 2 days later were related), educated myself better about Ramsay's ME by 2001. Took only natural supplements, avoided rx's and most OTCs.
I like many read the 2001 Klonopin/cfs/Severling/Cheny article and was very intrigued. (I saw no published research to back it up, but ME dulls my critical thinking skills....) I even eventually made my own graphics from the description, and finally took them with the printed article to my long-time doctor in 2006 during an especially poor sleep interval. He was happy to oblige. We started me off at 0.5 mg, slowly increased, and a few months later, 1 mg seemed like it would reliably give me a full night's sleep most of the time.
Thus I took 1 mg clonazepam at bedtime for sleep for 10-11 years, as prescribed. I thought I was ok, since I never recognized any signs of tolerance or dependence, though I was aware of the lingering drowsy side effects which a first were welcome, considering my previous poor sleep.
But slowly, insidiously, over years, my cognition declined, speech/word finding was embarrassingly bad, simple math even worse (I was my own accountant for self-employment prior to ME), apathy set in, and brain fog melded with duh-duh-dull brain. An avid outdoors person - even if I could only mosey around woods or field for 15-20 minutes with ME - I got out of my house or yard less and less, could do less and less. I blamed it on progressive ME.
I don't remember what caught my eye regarding benzos, but started following leads (especially info that you don't get in the US) that were not available online when I first started the drug. Those leads lead me to rightly question the drug. I decided to go off clonazepam starting January 2017. I decided to try a fast withdrawal (4 months) so I would have no problem distinguishing withdrawal symptoms from ME. I knew I'd be in for some pretty nasty withdrawal symptoms, but as a lifelong "tough guy" figured I could take it.
Boy, was I wrong! This sounds weird, but I'm 'glad' I had the veteran ME experience for 20 years to prepare me for the past 2-year marathon of withdrawal and post-withdrawal hell from 1 mg of clonazepam! (Which is equated to 20 mg diazepam, BTW.) The list of symptoms for me is long, pretty severe, and unrelenting. Far worse than in some areas than acute (early) ME. Did I say unrelenting? If I could pick just one all-encompassing word, UNRELENTING would be it.
Long story short, I am 1 year and 23 months off of 1mg clonazepam. My ME is much worse, likely due to the abuse my body had taken from benzo withdrawal symptoms. Stamina very poor. Homebound most of the time; bedbound far more often than my first 20 years of ME. Lingering post-acute withdrawal symptoms, still unrelenting, but fading ever-so-slowly.
I found a lot of folks who say 2 years after they "jump" (off their last dose) they begin to feel like themselves again. I suspect, since I jumped at least 8 months early, I may feel like I 'just' have moderate-severe ME by 2020 sometime.
I would add benzoinfo.com (a non-profit) and w-bad.org to previous posts that mention the invaluable Ashton Manual, benzo.org.uk and benzobuddies.org just as a start.
As an aside, my trusted doctor of 18 years has always "believed" in my ME, helped me get SS Disability (by 2005), did my EBV, Rnase-L and NK cell function tests, yet does NOT believe withdrawal from 1 mg of clonazepam has damaged me this badly for this long.
The benzo community is much larger, far more stigmatized, neglected, with far less research than the ME community. My heart really goes out to the millions who were healthy, poly-drugged because they and their doctors didn't know it was the benzo side effects and tolerance that was causing their additional symptoms in the first place. Many are far more damaged than I. (As a comparison, Phoenix has roughly 26,000 members; Benzo Buddies, 56,000. An April 2018 article In Psychiatric Times looks at the online benzo community and is one of the few that begins to acknowledge the medical community's neglect of benzo-caused illness.)
But mine is just one story. I'd love to see research catch up, and find more of the stories where folks say they were on a benzo for longer than 2-4 weeks and had no trouble coming off.